Besides the ingredients indispensable for the washing process, such as surfactants and builder materials, detergents generally contain further constituents which can be grouped together under the term washing auxiliaries and which include different groups of active ingredients such as foam regulators, antiredeposition agents, bleaching agents, bleach activators and dye transfer inhibitors. Such auxiliaries also include substances which, if present, enhance the detergent power of surfactants without generally themselves having to exhibit a pronounced surfactant behavior. The same also applies to cleaning products for hard surfaces. Such substances are often referred to as detergent power enhancers or, due to the particularly pronounced effect thereof with respect to oil-based or grease-based soiling, as “fat boosters”.
International patent application WO 01/57171 A1 discloses detergents or rinsing products which, besides surfactant, contain copolymers of anionic and cationic monomers and optionally in addition nonionic monomers.
International patent application WO 00/56849 A1 discloses the color- and shape-retaining effect of cationically charged polymers when washing textiles.
The soil release effect of block copolymers of ethylenically unsaturated monomers and alkylene oxides, alkylene glycols or cyclic ethers is known from international patent application WO 03/054044 A2.
International patent application WO 03/066791 A1 describes polymers which are associated with substrate surfaces and which consist of at least 1 mol % of monomers containing amide groups.
It has surprisingly been found that polymers comprising sulfobetaine units derived from ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids have particularly good properties which enhance the primary detergent power.